WHO ARE you going to call if your landlord steals your rent deposit, or if your employer sacks you when you tell them you're pregnant?

Who would you turn to if you were close to eviction because you were behind with your mortgage, or because the council hadn't paid your housing benefit?

For many people living in Swindon, there's only one answer: The Wiltshire Law Centre.

The Commercial Road-based centre takes on the unprofitable cases private law firms are unwilling to contest.

It picks up the pieces of people's lives when economic times get hard, or when big organisations let them down.

And after 20 years of standing up for the little man and woman, it's now more than ever their last resort in times of trouble.

Last year its nine paid advisers and 15 volunteers handled the housing, employment, immigration, discrimination and welfare benefit problems of almost 3,000 people, giving 500 of them detailed legal help.

Their efforts meant that clients went home with more than £205,000 in compensation and benefits money they would have had little chance of winning without the centre's help.

The centre makes a policy to take the little man's side in quarrels, representing employees, not employers, and tenants but not landlords.

But it does so out of a reasonable assumption that landlords and firms have more resources and will be able to pay for their own legal advice.

In any case, more and more ordinary people are seeking the help of the centre's hard-pressed advisors, as Swindon creaks under the strain of being both the fastest-growing town in Europe, and a place seemingly on the brink of recession.

Employment law advisor, Linda Dowling, says the recent wave of redundancies in the town is already leading to an increase in referrals to the centre.

"There are an increasing number of redundancy queries coming through which reflects what's going on in the economy," she says.

"A lot of employers aren't following procedures because they want to make people redundant and they are dismissing people for minor reasons in circumstances where they wouldn't normally dismiss.

"There's also a growing pressure for people to work longer hours or more than their contracted hours because, with the current financial constraints, firms don't want to take on more employees."

The housing law advisor, Rich-ard Hazell, meanwhile, has to cope with the breakdown in the benefit payments system at Swindon Council, which has left scores of tenants on the brink of being evicted from their homes because they have not received their housing benefit.

He says the sit-uation causes him and the local court immense frustration, plus uncertainty and injustice for his clients.

The centre's annual report goes further on the matter, saying: "Our clients have had to live with the fear of eviction.

"The worry for private tenants is that there may be no defence if the housing benefit arrears have not been paid by the date of the hearing."

At such a time, it must be good to know that Richard Hazell and Wiltshire Law Centre are on your side but even getting to see Richard and his colleagues will get more difficult if the demand for free legal advice continues to mount.

"Sometimes we are too stretched and have to turn people away, because we have got so many cases," says Jane Taylor, the centre's community dis-ability discrimination worker.

"It's frustrating, but you have to be realistic or you are not going to offer a proper service to your existing clients."

The centre would also like to expand into areas it doesn't currently cover, such as education, community care, and consumer law, but its £250,000 a year from Swindon Council grants, legal aid fees, and the National Lottery Fund, will not stretch to it.

But a fully-stretched organisation is often a successful one and there can be little doubt that the centre has chalked up more than its fair share of successes over the last 20 years.

It has got to the stage that even its supposed opponents are now referring clients to it, such as the council sending people with benefit problems to Richard so that he can argue their case.

"They are sending them to me because they have a real respect for my skills. I regard that as an amazing complement," he says.

Wiltshire Law Centre is at Temple House, 115-118 Commercial Road. Telephone 01793 486926.